Feature

Disciples III has been in development since... forever.
We spoke with Dmitriy Demyanovskiy about all the new features we can expect when the game is released.

Hooked Gamers: Hi! Thanks for participating in our interview. Can you introduce yourself to our readers and tell us what your job is on the team?

Dmitriy Demyanovskiy: My name is Dmitriy Demyanovskiy – I’m CEO of .dat studio, leading programmer and leading game-designer of Disciples III.

Hooked Gamers: The Disciples franchise has long been compared with Heroes of Might & Magic, often being seen as its "HoMM's darker brother". What do you think of this comparison? Does it affect how the Disciples series evolves?

Dmitriy Demyanovskiy: Well, that’s our favorite question. We wonder why everybody thinks that when you have a fantasy-world, and turn-based battles on a hexagon field, that it could be nothing but the HoMM clone. The Disciples world has its own rich history. It resembles other fantasy worlds not more than orcs and elves from Warcraft resemble their “brothers” from Warhammer or Gothic, or even the Witcher game. Disciples has a completely original story, characters with their unique style and a very special universe of its own.

The gameplay has many unique features, which also point at the fact that Disciples is similar to the Heroes series only as a representative of one genre and fantasy-style.

Hooked Gamers: Disciples III has been in development since... well, the dawn of mankind almost! We know that you took over the development back in 2005, but that still leaves 4 year of development time which is an awfully long time for a game. What caused the delay, and how do you ensure that a game for which the foundation was laid so long ago will still be able to stand strong in today's market?

Dmitriy Demyanovskiy: It’s not surprising that it’s taken such a long time to make such a game. The half of the year for the pre-production, and 3,5 years to develop the unique product with about 200 unique characters of the highest quality, beautiful terrain terramorphing and many other objects and original features.

We’ve got no doubts that the game will be strong enough to compete in the market and to bring much joy to the gamers. Disciples uses all of the modern innovations – 3D-graphics, extremely beautiful and high-detailed landscapes and models, original storyline, memorizable heroes. It will be interesting both for the fans of the Disciples series and for the newcomers also.

Hooked Gamers: The game is said to be a leap in the evolution of the Turn-Based RPG/Strategy genre which. A tall but promising claim! Can you tell us about the changes that Disciples III will bring to the Strategy/RPG table?

Dmitriy Demyanovskiy: First of all, there are a number of new features implemented. There can hardly be found a bigger project. We’ll simply enumerate the features: 6 types of terramorphing – both terrain and objects, the customization of heroes (3 sets, each including 7 items), the guardians, cover points and power nods on the battle arena, some unique skills, the change of the weather and of the day and night cycles on arena and on the global map, up to 200 original personalities, and that’s not the end!

Hooked Gamers: Characters can level-up as they gain experience and players get to assign attribute points (strength, agility etc) and skills. In what ways was the skill system changed? And which new skills do you think will be the most noticeable in the game?

Dmitriy Demyanovskiy: Every type of hero (warrior, mage, ranger, thief) has a unique set of skills. These sets differ also depending on hero’s race (Empire warrior and the Legion of the Damned warrior don’t have the same skills). There are typical passive skills for each class (mages receive +1 to the intellect, warriors +1 to the attack, and so on). But there are also active ones that are unique for each hero. For example, Lambert, the Imperial warrior can sacrifice some hit-points to produce an extra-powerful hit. Some of the heroes have the teleport skill. You can also choose the way how your hero will develop, for example, the warrior is able to become a very strong assault unit or turn to be a tank-class.